Tripura for reconsideration of ‘no detention’ at school

Agartala, Jul 07, 2011 : Tripura government demanded reconsideration of the provision of section 16 of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 that deals with no detention up to Class VIII standard.

Principal Secretary (Education) Banamali Sinha said that the state government did not agree with the provisions, as it found to be detrimental for quality education and development of the education system.

As per the provision no child shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education in a school, which Sinha termed inappropriate so far as Tripura like states were concerns.

Sinha however, underlined that the Act had several good provisions for development of education system and added, policy of not detaining students till class VIII had been misinterpreted that it was a license not to teach, which had become a concern for the administration. 

“The non-detention policy is a commitment made by a school to a child that the quality of education will be good, it implies a guarantee for learning and teachers need to understand as to why a student fails and in what ways schools contribute to this,” Sinha added. 

Schools need to review their working and then enable a child to pass and teachers should put more effort into understanding and monitoring children's progress. As part of the exercise the department had been in the process of introducing daily dairy for both teachers and students that would be inspected by the concerned officers in regular interval.

Besides, continuous comprehensive evaluation had also been suggested in the Act and schools must take the responsibility to train and educate the students because there was little in the curriculum which a normal child could not learn and teacher must address non-learning creatively, Sinha pointed out. 

Considering the all aspects, the state government has the view to re-consider the provision of no detention at school.

“We shall send our proposal to Ministry soon”, he said.